Noted author and historian Simon Schama received the 2001 Saint Louis Literary Award on Tuesday, recognizing his contributions in the field of historical scholarship.
The award is sponsored by the Saint Louis University Library Associates. Ruth A. Bryant, literary award chairman, presented it to Schama in front of a crowd of approximately 300 in the Saint Louis Room of the Busch Memorial Center.
“This year’s recipient has, in his writing, [brought] together not only action and thought, he has understood society’s hopes and dreams,” said Gillian L. Noero, a professor at the University of Cambridge who introduced Schama. His prose style, Noero said, makes use of the “richness of our speech and rhetoric,” mixing the analytical with the romantic. “[He] traces the growth of personal, moral responsibility in a democratic society . [providing] images of hope.”
Schama is the author/presenter of historical documentaries, one of which is currently showing on the History Channel entitled “A History of Britain, Vol. II: The Wars of the British 1603-1776.” The first part of the series, “The History of Britain,” was shown in the fall of 2000 and the spring of 2001.
Currently a professor of art history and history at Columbia University, Schama has taught history courses at Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard universities.
After receiving the award, Schama gave a brief response, addressing his perspective of what role history and historians should play in today’s society. Historians, he said, should not take a routine approach to history, nor should they advocate “heroic history,” exemplifying and romanticizing the past. Schama referred to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 as an example of how history forces us “to make you think . about how you spend your day and what the fruit of your life is.”
So what role might history play? Not as a handy reference guide for dealing with calamity, nor as a tool for time travel, Schama said. “By god, there is work for us to do,” he said. “In our way, we are rescuing the shattered fabric of our shared tradition.”
Schama also discussed methods he uses to approach historical study. For example, Schama stated that the first job of the historian is not to be completely dispassionate.
“History is an extraordinary mystery of poetic connection,” he said. “History is an act of toleration, and you are living the world of remarkable other persons.” Historians often find themselves “having to establish intense, close relationships with people you honor, or those you despise.”
Schama is the author of Patriots and Liberators, The Embarrassment of Riches, Citizens, Dead Certainties, Landscape and Memory and Rembrandt’s Eyes. He received a National Magazine Award for his work as an art critic for The New Yorker from 1995 to 1998. Schama was also the recipient of the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
